Tonight’s Preview: The Rockets and Giants are meeting for the first of ten times this season. The Rockets were 1 and 7 against the defending Memorial Cup champions last season, and were out-scored 26-7. The Giants managed to shutout the Rockets three times last season. The lone win for the Rockets came February 3rd in a 2-0 win. Kristofer Westblom and Torrie Jung combined for the shutout. Westblom suffered a season ending knee injury in that game. Myles MacRae and Clayton Barthel scored for the Rockets. After tonight’s game the two teams meet Saturday night in Vancouver, in the Giants home opener. The Rockets are coming off a 6-5 overtime loss Saturday night to the Tri City Americans. The Rockets built up a 5-2 third period lead, only to see the Americans score three goals to tie the game, before Erik Felde scored the winner on the power play in overtime. Kristofer Westblom made 26 saves in the loss. The Rockets were 2/4 on the power play.
Tough Schedule to Start Season: After tonight’s game the Rockets play five of their next 7 games on the road. The Rockets are in Everett Friday night before facing the Giants on Saturday. The Rockets open a portion of their schedule playing teams that are predicted to challenge for a division title this season. In the teams next 12 games, they face Vancouver four times, Everett, Spokane and Seattle twice, and Kamloops and Calgary once.
A Night of Firsts: Saturday’s game saw Brandon McMillan record his first two goal game of his young WHL career. McMillan had three points (2+1=3) in the overtime loss. Rookie Tyson Barrie scored his first career goal while rookie Milan Kytnar recorded his first WHL point, an assist on a Brandon McMillan goal. Lyon Messier and Kytnar made their WHL debuts Saturday night. Rookies Tyson Barrie, Kyle St. Denis and Collin Bowman all played a handful of games last season with the Rockets. Barrie and Bowman were just 15, while St. Denis was 16.
Tonight’s Notables: Tysen Dowzak is playing in his 100th WHL game tonight. Cody Almond is 8 games shy of 100 for his career. Colin Joe has the most games under his belt of anyone in the Rockets lineup. Joe has played 180 games, but is out with a wrist injury. James McEwan is a close second with 172 games in the WHL, and enters tonight’s game with 449 career penalty minutes. Justin Bernhardt is playing in career game 171 tonight. Bernhardt has 94 career points.
Scoring Five – Giving up Six: The last time the Rockets scored five goals in the team’s home opener was September 23, 2000 in a 5-3 win over Seattle. The last time the Rockets allowed more than 6 goals in an opening season game was September 26, 1998 in a 7-4 loss in Portland.
Huska vs. Hay: It’s hard to believe, but Rockets head coach Ryan Huska played under Vancouver Giants head coach Don Hay. Huska won three Memorial Cups under Hay with the Kamloops Blazers in the early 90’s. In fact Huska and Hay have the bragging rights of being the only two coaches in the CHL with four Memorial Cup rings. Huska won three as a player and one as an assistant coach with the Rockets in 2004, while Hay won three with the Blazers and most recently as the head skipper of the Vancouver Giants.
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